Kelly

I believe that the Caledonian ones have had their 3rd rail gear removed however?

Other options for power you could consider are the High Level motor bogies and the Branchlines motor bogies as well. The Replica chassis, whilst designed for 57ft and 64ft BR Mk1 bodies, has been shown to be rather adaptable, with the proprietor Gareth having converted a number of items using it by various means (cutting in half, etc). As for the cost, perhaps the sides could be sourced as etches from Worsley Works and just focus on the ends and roof details and leave the buyer to source their own power method? it shouldn't be too difficult to offer separate parts for this approach (cabs, bogies etc).

They've got appeal across most of the network for alot of people I expect, what with originally being dual voltage (25kV and 750V DC). Southern fans will love them too if they model the period around privatisation. As for the class utilisation, a lot of the problems have been done to I believe two factors. 1, their control electronics have proven complicated and somewhat tempermental over the years and 2, they have been known to draw too much power (especially on the 3rd rail!) and cause problems as a result. I suspect both factors also play a part in their cost-per-mile calculation which I expect most operators will use (and probably why the 66s are so ubiquitous).

Morning all. Hope everyone is well today? if not best wishes as needed. Today is the first of 3 days off Richard has, so I'm taking the opportunity to rest up, though I've also been doing some DTP for the next DEMU UPDate issue, which is progressing well enough (it goes in sporadic bursts as when Richard is at work Poppy wants attention and fuss so difficult to work at the computer those days). The house smells of bacon, so bacon sarnies should be served shortly, and a 3rd cuppa for the day.

Morning all. I've not posted for a while here, so thought I'd share a bit of an update. Life has been hard these past few months. Richard suffered a detached retina in late July, thankfully the surgery in August was successful, but not enough to restore vision suitable for driving (he had detached retina the previous July in the other eye and a further surgery on that eye due to a hole in the retina/macular, sadly that second surgery wasn't a success, and with the other eye detaching, no further surgery is likely to restore vision in that eye). I've been having to do all the driving since March (with a bit of respite between late May and late July) and it has taken its toll on my health as a result. Kinda feel I'm just existing between driving him to and from work at present. He hopefully will have a cataract operation in February, which will hopefully mean I can take a break from driving around March, so an end in sight hopefully. It is not all bad however, despite these challenges (and the challenges everyone has been facing with the pandemic of course) we have had Poppy to keep us going. She wouldn't leave his side after his operations and has been a trooper in moral boosting. Christmas was a rather quiet affair, with us both deciding Poppy would get the most spent on her rather than each other.

Certainly looks interesting! IIRC around that time the SER I believe were still running reversed and there were a number of points where they met the other railways and changed between Left and Right hand running or vice versa.

Thanks Barry. Richard was certainly rather worried for a while about whether he'd regain his sight. Thankfully he has, but unfortunately not enough to resume driving. Hopefully the cataract surgery will help with that though, just a matter of when really. He has a return to work interview Tuesday which will decide on what his future will be like. Hopefully thry should be able to make enough adjustments for him to return, Thankfully his role no longer requires use of fork lifts etc. Means I will be driving him to and from work, which I expect to leave me utterly knackered after a couple of days, so hopefully he can get them to let him break up the shifts to help me a bit. Kelly

I'm doing ok considering various things ongoing thank you Barry. Life has been rather hectic with my other half having a number of problems with his eyes over the past 18 months (2 detached retina surgeries , and a hole in macula/retina surgery). Poppy has been a big help and coped with the extra tension better than expected. Natalie is doing ok, but I'll leave it for her to say how things have been for her. Thanks for thinking of us in these difficult times Barry Kelly

Only just seen this news. Very sad news. Jonathan was very helpful in providing content for DEMU UPDate and produced some great articles, which I'll always be appreciative for. Such a talented modeller.

I already feel 2 days is not enough to see everything properly! I tend to find myself missing a number of layouts and or traders each year. Admittedly some of this is down to doing the demu stand most years recently, but most of the years I have been doing it I tend to do the one day and then have Sunday to look around (did both days last year so saw less as a result, but that is the trade off for 'working' at the show). It is already the biggest show in the country, and I can't see it currently working to grow in size. If anything I suspect some shows will start to shrink over the coming years, for a number of reasons.

The NEC charge by the square meter. So there'd be a big price rise if they took that extra space, it is only used on the build up/break down as a means to speed that up, and I expect they get charged for that use too. There are already enormous costs with hosting the show at the NEC as it is. I don't think many would like a further price hike on what are already premium ticket prices for a model railway show (but rather low comparatively for the NEC in general!)

Morning all. Woke up early in agony, and couldn't get back to sleep so figured I'd get some more design work done on a forthcoming issue of DEMU UPDate, using the new software (Affinity Publisher/Photo/Designer) bought recently. Slowly getting my head around this new software, and first impressions are it is much better than the old software (Serif PagePlus), and works well with all 3 programs working together seamlessly without the need to open them individually for things like drawing of diagrams or editing photos. Hope everyone is well? if not, sympathies and best wishes. It looks rather miserable weather outside, something Poppy has made it clear she is unhappy about, snuggling upto Richard instead. I can hear their combined snoring...

A worthwhile consideration for 2 reasons: SSDs have a finite number of writes. The type of SSD generally determines the number of write operations it will take before it starts to fail, with SLC being the best (generally not available these days) and QLC considered the worst, but also the cheapest. A QLC drive should still give good service, though performance will drop off on reads/writes once the SLC cache inside the drive is full (QLC drives use a small amount of DRAM called SLC cache to speed up operations to counter the slower performance QLC offers (though QLC offers much more storage than others)). It is wise to have a back up drive externally anyway, that way if you go away you can keep a copy of important files in say a fire/water proof safe. Cloud backup is another option to create the best workflow for backups (1 local, 1 external, 1 off site).

He moved out there after marrying a Canadian here who then wasn't able to meet the requirements to be allowed to stay. So he has regular contact with her and her family, all Canadian and works over there too.

What makes me smile? Seeing this face every day of the past few months. She has kept us both going and has coped with the big changes to her routines well all things considered, especially as she is a rather excitable dog.

My mum, having lived in south London since the early 1970s when she moved there for work as a nurse (and would have a rather interesting introduction to my father and uncle who worked as porters at the hospital and apparently came around the corner with a loaded trolley for the morgue too fast and ran her over! ) has largely lost a lot of her Lancashire accent (she was born in leigh and spent a lot of time in the lake district and kendal growing up as my maternal grandfather was a vicar and so moved around a fair amount before settling into retirement in southport). But you can still pick it out every so often with certain words or if she has had a couple of glasses of wine (not very often for her). My father on the other hand has a fairly heavy London accent. I do wonder if my younger brother will develop a Canadian accent now he has emigrated there.

Natalie once famously said (i paraphrase) ' I have removed staples from children, a cat shouldn't be too bad...' chinook like is how I would describe the claws of said unhappy cat..

You asked for a photo of poppy. Natalie said there was a request for a photo of poppy, so I came looking at the thread. I noticed a few months ago there was talk of which dog would take which, which is not the sort of thing anyone should be endorsing I hope. The answer is poppy would run away as fast as possible!

Bachmann suburban coaches are 57ft, you need 64ft versions, which you can get as parts from replica railways. Iirc, thinking off top of my head you would need two of the coaches with luggage compartments each end with a pair of 64ft suburban coaches in the middle. But you will need to remove the buffers and fit centre buffing plates and a few other things.

I can't speak for the previous 6 years prior to my joining the site, but it has been a mine of useful information, friendly support and some of the RMWeb meetings in the past have been very good (I wish there were more tbh, as I much prefer smaller more social things these days). Well done Andy and the rest of your team for your hard work and massive amount of patience at times on this forum!

Perhaps part of the problem might be that AMD have effectively abandoned Crossfire (much like nVidia have abandoned mostly SLI in favour of the newer method their Quadro cards use) and that the R7 cards are a little old comparatively to the current crop. Check the latest driver information and see if it says something along the lines of dropping support for certain cards and features (such as Crossfire). I expect one of the next updates for nVidia will start dropping support for 900 series cards at some point (I have a 970).

Good afternoon awl. With Richard on day shifts, I seem unable to get to sleep before 5am atm, so am sleeping odd hours. Anyway, Poppy is continuing to keep me company (currently alternating between snoring and complaining that it is wet outside). Hope all are well? if not, best wishes.

Staffie crossed with Greyhound (50% staffie, 35% Amstaff and 15% greyhound).

Afternoon 'awl. hope all are well given the circumstances. I have the company of Poppy for the duration it seems, so all is well.

I have gone to my other halfs so we can look after each other better (more likely he'll look after me more though). It does mean I have the company of Poppy for the duration however, so not all bad. I made sure to bring some supplies with me. Plenty of kits and track building items to keep me busy assuming I can be bothered to start of course! Still the company is nice, if a bit bouncy.